Previous posts: Our budget and where we shop, planning for the week and making the list
My favorite meal planning post, prepping for the week. Now to be completely transparent, I haven’t always prepped for the week like I do now. When I first got out of college, prepping for the week meant making sure I had enough eggs to eat for almost every single meal and that was it.
I’ve come a long way since then and have learned that healthy eating takes preparation. I’m not talking 16 hours of standing in the kitchen, but an hour or so on the weekend can really go a long way for those who want to cut back on eating out and who want to be healthy.
Every weekend I prep is always different, depending on what I plan on making for the week ahead. Though I’ve only been seriously prepping for the week for about a month, it usually only takes me an hour, tops two hours. I also don’t mind cooking though, so some of you may even spend less than that if you like to prepare quicker, on the fly meals.
I usually start prepping on Sundays, after church. We hardly ever have anything going on in that time frame, so this is what works best for me. Doing it at this time also gives me natural light to take better blog photos, a FYI for you bloggers out there.
I first take a look at the meals and snacks I’ve selected to make for the week. Some meals I won’t prep ahead of time at all (like nights we have omelets, Walnut Crusted Salmon, etc) because they either don’t reheat well or they are quick to make. I typically choose 2 meals to make ahead of time and 1-2 snacks.
This week, for instance, I had BBQ Brown Rice and Black Bean burgers, Shrimp Stir Fry, hard boiled eggs (for snacking), amazeballs to be made ahead of time.
(I decided to nix the quiche and pizza dough and Ryan made the bread 
)
I write out what I plan on making, mainly because I like writing lists but partially because I’m forgetful. You know how it goes.
I first started with the hard boiled eggs to get those out of the way.
And the brown rice, since it takes longer to cook.
I work on the amazeballs next. This was my first time making them! I only made four but I wish I would have tripled the recipe.
Once that wrapped up, I moved on to the BBQ Brown Rice and Black Bean Burgers. I had to wait until the brown rice cooled to mix all of the ingredients together so I cleaned up the kitchen a bit.
Once assembled, into the pan they went!
I tested only one first, to make sure they tasted good before making more.
After those were done, I packed everything in glassware containers to be put in the fridge.
Since I was making brown rice, I plan a stir fry meal for the week too, so the rice serves double duty.
And that’s that! This week was smaller in comparison to other weeks. It really depends on what we have going on for the week. Some times I’ll make a big batch of soup to have for the week, some times it’s something in the crock pot.
A little prep goes a long way!
Question: Do you meal prep for the week?
{ 5 comments… read them below or add one }
This post was so informative to see how you do things. My idea of prepping for the week is making dinner on Sunday with enough leftovers to eat for the next day or two! By the way, I told Laurie about your workshop on freezer meals and she was totally into it!
If I didn’t have to spend 80% of my weekend grading papers/test/quizzes, I would DEFINITELY do my meal prep on the weekend. I just can’t seem to find the time, but it seems like it would be such a lifesaver during the week.
I don’t meal prep on a particular day, but I try to prep sometimes. I’ve been making a lot of meals with fresh veggies lately, so the night before the meal I chop up the veggies. Occasionally I’ll do it just earlier in the day though – just to keep me from spending too many hours in a row in the kitchen.
I don’t know why I don’t do this! It would make my life so much easier! And yes to Alysha’s comment — I would love the workshop!!
Woohoo! We’ll get something in the works.